AMLC prober says former Congressman Valdez received money from Napoles-linked NGOs

Rep. Edgar Valdez on his way to a hearing. (Screengrab from Inquirer.net’s footage)

MANILA – Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) investigator on Monday bared that former APEC party-list Rep. Edgar Valdez received money from fake foundations owned by alleged pork barrel scam mastermind Janet Lim-Napoles.

“We concluded, your honor, that the accounts involved in this case received money from NGOs…We were able to trace funds coming from NGOs owned by Mrs. Napoles,” AMLC bank investigator Joeshias Tambago told the Sandiganbayan Fifth Division.

The AMLC official was testifying in relation to Valdez’s petition to post bail for a plunder case in connection with his alleged involvement in the scam.

He said based on his team’s investigation, deposits amounting to Php51. 9 million were made to five bank accounts of Valdez – four with Metrobank and one with Allied Bank.

He told the anti-graft court that among the sources of the money were NGOs being linked to Napoles.

He, however, admitted to court that the AMLC investigation did not include the nature of the supposed transaction between Valdez and the Napoles-linked NGOs.

“The underlying transaction is not part of our investigation,” Tambago pointed out.

When asked how his team was able to trace that some of the money deposited to Valdez’s bank accounts came from the NGOs, Tambago said that several of the deposit slips have hand-written notations of the NGOs’ bank account number.

“Some have notation saying this amount came from an NGO. There is no proper form saying where the amount came from, but in some cash deposits the source of the fund was indicated in hand-writing,” Tambago explained.

Tambago cited as example one Metrobank deposit slip involving the amount of Php499,900, which has a hand-written note of an account number on top of it.

According to Tambago, when his team traced the owner of the hand-written account number, it was revealed that the account was named under Philippine Agri and Social Economic Development Foundation Inc. (PASEDFI), one of the NGOs allegedly owned by Napoles.

When asked by the court if his team was able to trace who wrote the bank account number on the deposit slip, Tambago said his team failed to establish.

Tambago further revealed that one Metrobank account of Valdez’s wife, Thelma, was also used as “depository” of money coming from Napoles-linked NGOs.

“That account was also involved in this case, because based on the bank documents we have gathered, that account was used as transferee or recipient of funds from the NGOs,” Tambago stressed.

Valdez is facing plunder and seven counts of graft for his alleged involvement in the pork barrel scam.

Based on the information of the case, the former lawmaker received from Napoles a total of Php57.78 million worth of kickbacks in exchange for allocating his Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) or pork barrel from 2004 to 2010 to the latter’s alleged fake NGOs.

Valdez is currently detained at the BJMP detention facility in Camp Bagong Diwa, Taguig City.

Meanwhile, in an interview with reporters after the hearing, Valdez’s lawyer Joel Ferrer dismissed Tambago’s testimony as “merely speculative.”

“Sinasabi niya that the money came from the NGOs allegedly owned by Napoles, however, as admitted by the witness himself, he has no knowledge of the underlying transaction… so he cannot conclude that the money came from illegal activity,” Ferrer said.

Ferrer added that the PASEDFI was not among the NGOs included in the information of the case against Valdez.

“So technically hindi mo rin iyan magagamit as evidence. Because that NGO he (Tambago) was referring to is not included in the case,” Ferrer said.